Germany decides to leave history in the past and prepare for war

A missile pitcher sends a cloud of brown dust in the air while rushing through a field towards the shot line. Moments later comes the countdown of a soldier, from five to ‘Fire!’, Before a rocket roars the sky.

The explosions and the auges of such military training exercises are so constant that the locals in the small nearby town of Munster no longer realize.

But life here is ready to be even stronger.

The German army, the Bundeswehr, recently obtained the clearing of a mass increase in investment after Parliament voted to exempt the defense expense of strict rules on debt.

The main general of the country told the BBC that the cash impulse is urgently needed because it believes that Russian aggression will not stop in Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is necessary to deter that,” says General Carsten Breuer. He warns that NATO should be prepared for a possible attack in just four years.

“It’s not about how long I need, it’s much more about how long Putin gives us to be prepared,” says the chief of defense without rodeos. “And the sooner we are prepared, the better.”

The large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine has changed deeply in Germany.

For decades, people here have been raised about a rejection of military power, very aware of Germany’s past role as aggressor in Europe.

“We start two world wars. Although 80 years have passed since World War ended, the idea that Germans should stay out of the conflict is still in the DNA of many people,” explains Markus Ziener, of the German Marshall background in Berlin.

Some remain distrustful of anything that can be seen as militarism even now, and the Armed Forces have been chronically sub -financed.

“There are voices warning: ‘Are we really on the right path? Is our perception of threat?'”

When it comes to Russia, Germany has had a specific approach.

While countries like Poland and the Baltic states warned against Moscow too close, and increased their own defense expense, Berlin under former Foreign Minister Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined that it was giving democratization by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

Then, in February 2022, an Atonito Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz declared a national pivot in priorities, a “Zeitenwende”.

It was then that he committed a giant of 100 billion euros ($ 108 billion; £ 83 billion) to boost the country’s army and keep “Belicists like Putin under control. But General Breuer says it was not enough.

“We fill the potholes a bit,” he says. “But it’s really bad.”

On the contrary, he points out a heavy expense in Russia in arms and equipment, for stocks and the first line in Ukraine.

It also highlights Russia’s hybrid war: from cyber attacks to sabotage, as well as unidentified drones about German military sites.

Add to that aggressive rhetoric of Vladimir Putin and General Breuer sees “a really dangerous mixture.”

“Unlike the western world, Russia is not thinking about the boxes. It is not about peace and war times, it is a continuum: let’s start hybrids, then climb, after return. This is what makes me think that we are facing a real threat.”

He argues that Germany has to act quickly.

The firm evaluation of the Head of Defense of the current state -dejected of their forces with a recent report to Parliament. The Bundeswehr, concluded, had “very little of everything.”

The author of the report, the commissioner of the Armed Forces, Eva Högl, revealed a serious shortage that went from ammunition to soldiers, to the barracks in ruins. He estimated the budget for renewal work alone in around € 67 billion ($ 72 billion; £ 56 billion).

Raise the debt limit, allowing the army to borrow, in theory, without limit, will give access to a “constant line” of funds to start addressing that, says General Breuer.

The historical movement was made by the expected successor of Scholz, Friedrich Merz, in a race that raised some eyebrows. He presented the proposal to Parliament just before he dissolved after the February elections.

The new Parliament, with an anti-militarist to the left and the extreme right of Russia, could have been less arranged.

But the “turn” that Germany began in 2022 won a new impulse this year.

A recent Yougov survey showed that 79% of the Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “dangerous” for European peace and security.

Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.

The survey followed a speech in Munich in which its vice president JD Vance was placed in Europe and its values.

“That was a clear sign that something has changed fundamentally in the United States,” says Markus Ziener.

“We do not know where the United States is directed, but we know the belief that we can trust 100% of American protection when it comes to our security: that trust has disappeared.”

In Berlin, the traditional caution of the Germans over all military things seems to be fading quickly.

Charlotte Kreft, eighteen, says that his own pacifist opinions have changed.

“For a long time, we think that the only way to compensate for the atrocities we committed in World War II was to make sure it would never happen again (…) and we thought we needed to demilitarize,” explains Charlotte.

“But now we are in a situation where we have to fight for our values, democracy and freedom. We need to adapt.”

“There are many Germans who still feel strange because of the great investments in our military,” Ludwig Stein agrees. “But I think that taking into account the things that have happened in recent years, there is no other real option.”

Sophie, a young mother, believes that investing in defense is now “necessary in the world in which we live.”

But Germany needs troops and tanks, and is much less interested in its own child being enlisted.

The Bundeswehr only has a permanent center, a small unit interspersed between a pharmacy and a shoe store next to the Friedrichstrasse station in Berlin.

With dolls covered with camouflage in the window and slogans as “fresh and spicy”, their goal is to attract men and women to serve, but only receives a handful of people who call every day.

Germany has already lost the goal of increasing its ranks by 20,000 soldiers, to 203,000, and reduce the average age of 34.

But Genuer’s ambitions are much greater.

He told us that Germany needs 100,000 additional troops to defend itself and the Eastern NATO flank properly, a total of 460,000, including reserves. Therefore, he insists that the return to military service is “absolutely” necessary.

“You won’t get this 100,000 without one or another recruitment model,” said the general.

“We don’t have to determine what model they bring them. For me it is only important that we have the soldiers.”

That debate has just begun.

General Breuer is clearly positioning himself in the front of an effort to push the “turn” of Germany faster and faster.

With its easy and attractive way, he likes to visit regional municipalities and challenge the public there with a question: “Are you ready for war?”

One day, a woman accused him of scaring her. “I said: ‘It’s not me who scares you, it’s the other guy!'” He recalls his answer.

He referred to Vladimir Putin.

The twin alarm of “Awakening”, from the threat of Russia and an isolationist, disconnected from the United States, is now playing aloud to Germany, the general argues, and cannot be ignored.

“Now it is understandable for each and every one that we have to change.”